ESD Teacher Education Projects for Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals: Okayama University Drives ESD in New Directions

Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), which UNESCO leads and coordinates globally since 2005, is currently promoted worldwide through the Global Action Programme (GAP) on ESD as well as through the Sustainable Development Goal 4 on education under Target 4.7. ESD is also a vital means of implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and a key enabler of all the Sustainable Development Goals.

Okayama University is the only university in Asia to hold the UNITWIN/UNESCO chair programme on ESD and is a key member of the Okayama Regional Centre of Expertise on ESD (RCE Okayama) established by the United Nations University. Okayama University has energetically promoted teacher education for ESD, and in November 2014 at the UNESCO World Conference on ESD, the university cooperated with the International Network of Teacher Education Institutions (INTEI) associated with the UNESCO Chair in Reorienting Education towards Sustainability at York University Canada to organize the Eighth International Conference of the network.

Building on these achievements, Okayama University launched the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Core-to-Core Programme (2017-2019), “Formation of International Center of Excellence to Promote Teacher Education on ESD” with the aim for seven countries in Asia (China, Indonesia, Japan, Lao PDR, Mongolia, Myanmar, and Republic of Korea) to establish core institutions on teacher education for ESD, create academic networks for ESD, and foster future generations of ESD researchers.

In order to further promote international collaboration for advancing teacher education on ESD in Asia-Pacific region, Okayama University and UNESCO Bangkok jointly organized the “Asia-Pacific Regional Meeting of Teacher Education on ESD: Towards Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals through Education” in Okayama on 27-29 November 2018.

The meeting brought together people from the education sector from 19 countries in the Asia-Pacific region who are involved in training of teachers and leaders in charge of implementing ESD. The participants worked on the development of “Development of Asia-Pacific Frameworks for Teacher Education Programme on ESD”, which will provide goals for teacher education for ESD. The frameworks as a new direction of ESD will be proposed at the coming “2019 Global Meeting of Teacher Education for ESD” in Okayama on 22-25 November 2019, which is a gateway to the GAP 2030 on ESD.

Further information
Asia-Pacific Regional Meeting of Teacher Education for ESD
http://www.okayama-u.ac.jp/eng/news/index_id8279.html

JSPS Core-to-Core Programme
http://ceteesd.ed.okayama-u.ac.jp/